Creative Approaches to Designing Educational Audio Andrew Middleton*
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ALT-J, Research in Learning Technology Vol. 17, No. 2, July 2009, 143–155 Beyond podcasting: creative approaches to designing educational audio Andrew Middleton* Learning & Teaching Institute, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK (TaylorCALT_A_403481.sgmReceived and Francis Ltd 8 May 2008; final version received 3 April 2009) 10.1080/09687760903033082ALT-J,0968-7769Original2009Association172000000JulyMra.j.middleton@shu.ac.uk AndrewMiddleton Research Article (print)/1741-1629 2009for Learning in Learning Technology TechnologyThis(online) paper discusses a university-wide pilot designed to encourage academics to creatively explore learner-centred applications for digital audio. Participation in the pilot was diverse in terms of technical competence, confidence and contextual requirements and there was little prior experience of working with digital audio. Many innovative approaches were taken to using audio in a blended context including student-generated vox pops, audio feedback models, audio conversations and task-setting. A podcast was central to the pilot itself, providing a common space for the 25 participants, who were also supported by materials in several other formats. An analysis of podcast interviews involving pilot participants provided the data informing this case study. This paper concludes that audio has the potential to promote academic creativity in engaging students through media intervention. However, institutional scalability is dependent upon the availability of suitable timely support mechanisms that can address the lack of technical confidence evident in many staff. If that is in place, audio can be widely adopted by anyone seeking to add a new layer of presence and connectivity through the use of voice. Keywords: podcasting; digital audio; transformation; creativity; innovation Introduction Podcasting has only a limited value to education when it is understood from a simple technical perspective. For example, Deal (2007, 2) describes podcasting as “a means of publishing audio and video content on the web as a series of episodes with a common theme … accompanied by a file called a ‘feed’ that allows listeners to subscribe to the series and receive new episodes automatically”. However, when it is understood more broadly, driven by pedagogic requirements, a new, rich vein of educational applications for digital media emerges. Though only some of these may draw upon all of the technical characteristics of podcasting, many applications emerge for the use of voice in ways that can enrich the virtual learning environment (VLE). This paper describes how academic staff responded to the installation of a VLE podcasting tool (Podcast LX) and the running of the Closer! pilot at Sheffield Hallam University, which was initiated to promote learner-centred approaches to a blended curriculum. Academics were asked to think beyond the connections that can be made between new technology and existing pedagogy to consider what new practice was afforded by podcasting. Proposals from the 25 self-selected academics showed a *Email: [email protected] ISSN 0968-7769 print/ISSN 1741-1629 online © 2009 Association for Learning Technology DOI: 10.1080/09687760903033082 http://www.informaworld.com 144 A. Middleton desire to make the VLE a more human space through the greater use of voice. This was reflected in the name of the year-long pilot itself – ‘Closer!’ This human concern contrasts with technical descriptions of educational podcast- ing, which often emphasise how the XML feed can enhance user access, and how it supports the serialisation of commonly themed content. This paper reports on how a range of staff chose to enhance their practice with digital audio in the pilot. Background Podcasting is a technical term that describes the automatic distribution of asynchronous digital media to niche groups of subscribers using an RSS feed (RSS Advisory Board 2005). As such, it does not have any inherent educational value (Deal 2007). However, the capacity to capture and share learning voices, the flexibility it affords in providing access to media, its methods of production and its means of targeted distribution, do offer new opportunities to educators. Disappointingly, the term is synonymous in some quarters with the transmission of the teacher’s knowledge through the distribution of recorded lectures. A number of studies have attempted to evaluate podcasting, understanding podcasting in this simple way (e.g. Abt and Barry 2007; Lazzari 2009). Such studies assume that podcasting’s value lies in its capacity to reproduce existing teacher-centred models through ‘coursecasting’ – the practice of recording and distributing lectures (Jones 2006; Kadel 2006). It should be noted that coursecasting has some benefits (Brittain et al. 2006): obviating the need for students to take notes in class resulting in more attention being paid to the teacher; providing the lecture for those who did not attend; providing a record to support revision (Evans 2008). The availability of proprietary lecture recording tools and the development of iTunes U (Apple Education 2008) might imply that teaching can be commoditised as an educational experience in which listening equates to learning, but this notion is challenged by Draper and Maguire (2007, 51) and others who recognise that lectures exist for “a particular group of learners, at a particular moment” and resist the suggestion that they can be “canned” for posterity. Coursecasting conflicts with progressive and increasingly dominant learning theories such as Social Constructiv- ism (Vygotsky 1978), Communal Constructivism (Holmes et al. 2001) and Connectivism (Siemens 2005), which advocate richer, active learning experiences for learners, where learners are encouraged to arrive at personal understandings within a social context. Podcasting is much more complex than coursecasting evaluation studies might suggest. As with any learning technology, its application is inevitably determined by many local factors that make the transferability of findings difficult (Kirkwood 2003) and some of the contexts that may affect the implementation of podcasting include: profile and size of student user groups; technical competence and confi- dence of all stakeholders; the intricacies of the institutional technical infrastructure and associated policies; teaching philosophies; professional philosophies; academic style; positioning of the resource in the pedagogy; learner awareness, motivation and preferences. At the same time, and despite some of the initial interest in podcasting’s mobile interface to learning (Campbell 2005), the use of the term is increasingly simplified to mean the online distribution of any asynchronous digital media, not just media ALT-J, Research in Learning Technology 145 distributed through RSS podcast feeds (Ralph et al. 2008). For example, France and Ribchester (2008) describe their use of personalised audio feedback as podcasting. Even where there is a feed, students tend to access podcasts directly from course sites using a PC, rather than via a feed or by using mobile devices (Malan 2007; Newnham and Miller 2007), whilst Aliotta et al. (2008) describe delivering podcasts during face-to-face teaching sessions. In exploring the educational potential of podcasting we cannot assume that students want to learn with podcasting simply because they belong to the ‘Google Generation’ (CIBER 2008, 5). Undoubtedly, some students own devices capable of managing podcast subscriptions, but if they are aware of the technical processes at all, they often perceive it as an advanced technology and one that they do not associate with studying or with the use of their personal equipment (Cann 2007; Lee and Chan 2007). However, the proliferation of MP3 players and the frequent mention of iPods and podcasting in the popular media have been useful in raising awareness of digital media amongst academics, perhaps suggesting that it is becoming reliable, enjoyable and engaging for users (Campbell 2005). Similarly, and importantly, the popularity of user-generated video websites like YouTube, suggest that digital media is no longer the preserve of media technicians (Cann 2007). Many authors (e.g. Aliotta et al. 2008; Cane and Cashmore 2008; Chan and Lee 2005; Draper and Maguire 2007; Lazzari 2009; Stewart and Doolan 2008) have shown that digital media technology can have myriad engaging and active learning applica- tions. This variety reflects the variety of challenges and interests facing the teachers and students who have explored it. Other commentators suggest podcasts are best when they: are brief (Chan and Lee 2005); allow academics to offer pre-vision and re-vision materials to lectures (Aliotta et al. 2008; Nortcliffe and Middleton 2008); are used to summarise knowledge (Cane and Cashmore 2008; Evans 2008; Ralph et al. 2008), especially when it is the students who are producing the summaries (Draper and Maguire 2007). The initiative discussed here, however, was informed by the belief that new and emerging technologies should be explored to enable new and emerging learner- centred pedagogies, enabling approaches that have, until now, not been realistically accessible. Learner-centredness describes pedagogy that places “student responsibility and activity at its heart, in contrast to a strong emphasis on teacher control and cover- age of academic content in much conventional, didactic teaching” (Cannon and Newble 2000, 16). Others have recognised the opportunity to incorporate audio as a component